What to say before you record or transcribe a meeting: consent wording that works (and what to do when someone says no)

Before you record or transcribe a meeting you need wording for three moments: one line in the calendar invitation, two sentences at the start of the call, and a written notice covering what Article 13 of the GDPR requires you to tell people. All three are below, with the version for capture that runs on your own computer and the sentence to use when somebody declines. Anything in square brackets is a decision only you can make.

Three moments, three different jobs

The three moments do different work, which is why one notice rarely covers all of them.

1. The line for the calendar invitation

Recording notice: this meeting will be recorded and
transcribed automatically so the outcomes are written down
accurately. [Company] is responsible for the recording;
contact [name, email]. Full privacy information:
[link or attachment]. If you would rather we did not, tell
us beforehand or say so at the start of the call.

Meeting descriptions do not always survive the trip to an external guest: depending on the calendar system and how the invitation was forwarded, the body arrives truncated or not at all, so never treat the invite as the only notice. And if the audio is deleted once the transcript exists, say so, because that is the first question you will be asked.

2. The spoken opener at minute zero

Before we start, one thing: I am recording this and having
it transcribed automatically so I can listen instead of
typing. Everyone on the call gets the transcript
afterwards. If anyone would rather I did not, say so now
and I will leave it off.

Then comes the part the templates skip: the pause. Two or three seconds of silence that somebody can speak into. A person who says nothing has not agreed, they have said nothing. If you need a recorded agreement, ask people individually and let them answer out loud; the first minute is in the transcript anyway.

Latecomers were not there for the opener, so repeat the first sentence when somebody joins at minute five. An announcement made at last month's review does not carry today's.

3. The written notice, with the Article 13 fields

This block belongs in the meeting description, an attachment, or a page you link to. It is the full version, the spoken opener is the short one.

Recording and transcription of this meeting

Controller: [company, registered address]
Contact: [name, email, phone]
Data protection officer: [name and contact, if appointed]

What is processed: the audio of the meeting, the transcript
produced from it, and the attribution of what was said to
individual speakers [plus an automatically generated
summary].

Purpose: [for example, a record of the decisions taken and
the commitments made].

Legal basis: [Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, consent, or Art. 6(1)(f)
GDPR, legitimate interests. If legitimate interests, name
the interest here in plain words.]

Retention: [period, or the criteria used to decide when it
is deleted].

Recipients: [internal recipients, any service providers
acting as processors, and where processing takes place].

Your rights: access, rectification, erasure, restriction of
processing, objection, and data portability. Where the
processing rests on your consent you may withdraw it at any
time with effect for the future; processing before the
withdrawal remains lawful. You may also lodge a complaint
with a supervisory authority.

Objection and withdrawal: [email address]. A short message
is enough.

Which field fills which blank

Article 13 of the GDPR lists what you have to tell people when you collect their data from them directly (regulation text on EUR-Lex, accessed September 2026). The table maps each blank above to the provision behind it.

There is deliberately no number in the retention field. The right period depends on why you need the transcript and which obligations apply to you, so that is the line to settle with your data protection officer first. Naming criteria instead of a fixed period is allowed, for example "until the minutes are approved, and at most [period]".

4. When the capture runs on your own computer

Almost every template on the web is written for a bot that joins the call, which is why they all read like "I would like to introduce my virtual assistant". If you capture the audio on your own machine instead, there is no assistant to introduce and nothing extra in the participant list. That is exactly why the disclosure has to be spoken: there is nothing for anyone to notice by themselves.

Quick note before we start: I am transcribing this on my
computer. Nothing has joined the call, so you will not see
an extra name in the participant list, but it is running.
Tell me if you would rather I did not.

It is short because it is said while people are still settling in. It hides nothing and apologises for nothing.

5. When someone says no

Thanks for saying so, I will leave it off. I will take
notes by hand and send you a short summary afterwards that
you can correct.

Four rules make the difference here:

• Stop, completely. Not "just the second half", not "in the background to be safe". If you had already started, say so and delete what exists.
• Do not argue. A refusal needs no reason, and asking twice turns a free decision into pressure.
• Do not ask again later in the same meeting, not even after somebody else takes the chair.
• Write down the outcome: asked, declined, not recorded.

If one person in eight objects, a partial recording is rarely the answer: keeping one voice out of a shared audio stream is difficult, and the German criminal provision below protects each speaker's words rather than the group's. Usually the workable outcome is no recording and better notes.

A notice is not consent

The two get mixed up constantly. A notice discharges the information duty in Article 13. Consent is something else: a freely given, informed, unambiguous indication made by a clear affirmative action, and under Article 7(3) withdrawing it has to be as easy as giving it.

Whether staying in the meeting counts as agreement is disputed, and in an employment setting it leans towards no. German law requires the dependency inherent in the employment relationship to be weighed when judging whether consent was freely given, and expects it in writing or electronic form as a rule (§ 26(2) BDSG). The European Data Protection Board goes further in its Guidelines 05/2020 on consent: employees "can only give free consent in exceptional circumstances, when it will have no adverse consequences at all whether or not they give consent" (paragraph 22, accessed September 2026). For internal meetings that means finding a different legal basis rather than counting nods.

Criminal law runs on a separate track. In Germany, § 201(1) StGB makes it an offence to record another person's non-publicly spoken word without authorisation, with up to three years' imprisonment or a fine. The authorisation comes from the agreement of everyone whose words are captured: everyone, not the majority and not the most senior person in the room. A sound GDPR basis does not replace it.

For calls reaching the United States, federal law treats the consent of one party as sufficient (18 U.S.C. § 2511, accessed September 2026), but several states require every party to agree, and published lists of which states those are disagree with each other. Check the state you need in the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press recording guide. Asking everyone meets the strictest version by default.

What Kalima takes off your hands here

Kalima records the audio on your own device, so nothing joins the call as a participant. That does not remove the announcement, it makes it more necessary. What comes after is easier: a session stays private until you turn sharing on, and then access grants decide who may open the link, with an optional password and expiry, which turns "I will send you the transcript" into one click. Individual sessions you delete yourself. The detail is in sharing a session and on the trust page.

Frequently asked questions

Is a line in the calendar invitation enough on its own?

Rarely. Descriptions do not always reach external guests intact, forwarded invitations often lose the body text, and anyone who accepts from a notification never opens it. The invitation is advance warning; the spoken opener is the part that counts.

Does staying in the meeting count as consent?

Do not rely on it. Consent has to be freely given and unambiguous, and silence is reliably neither. In an employment context the dependency between employer and employee weighs against it. If you need consent, ask for it out loud or in writing.

Do I have to state an exact retention period?

Article 13(2)(a) asks for the period or, where that is not possible, the criteria used to determine it. "As long as necessary" with nothing else attached does not meet that. What is right for you depends on the purpose and your own retention obligations, which is why the block above leaves it blank.

Do I need a signature?

For an ordinary working meeting, usually not. It changes if the recording rests on consent and you have to demonstrate it, which is the case for employees and for interviews you intend to publish. German law expects employee consent in writing or electronic form unless special circumstances make another form appropriate.

Related

• Is it legal to record a meeting?
• Why no bot joins your meeting
• When IT blocks your AI notetaker
• Sharing a session and controlling access
• Trust and security